Category: Max

Max is two!! Today’s his birthday. So, what did we do? He went over to my mom’s (after going to the pet store, which is more fun for him than the zoo). Me? What did I do? I took the day off and, with my little sister, painted a mural on his bedroom wall. We did a monkey, a dog, two birds, a bi-plane, a kid on a bike, a hot air balloon and a box kite, plus almost a dozen clouds. I’m pooped, and we haven’t even had the party yet!! There will be many pictures for grandparents up tomorrow (I hope).

In the spirit of what I said yesterday, here’s something I noticed yesterday.

I let Max run around outside without his shoes on. There’s just something idyllic about little boys with bare feet running in the grass. The problem with this is our neighborhood is filled with large pet dogs who crap in the grass. So, in order to maintain the shoeless state of my toddler, I run around after him scanning the ground for turd-mines. Once they’re spotting, I mentally plot them on the map in my brain. Once I know where they are, it’s pretty easy to steer Max clear of them.

I’m grateful we don’t have a lot of trees in the lawn he runs around, or I’d be dead. Running around with your head down is a good way to get brained.

And how are you doing?

This one’s for the grandparents: Something else to list in the con column of being allergic to hair-bearing animals – Max LOVES dogs. The kid isn’t even two, and he’s in love with them. I took him outside for a romp (I swear that’s what he does. He doesn’t walk, he romps) after dinner. In the space between our collection of townhouses and the next, there’s a large grassy hill that Max likes to play in. He’ll roll down it, or drop small rocks through the holes in the storm drain to listen to them hit the bottom. Once he hears the clink of the pebble on the bottom, he looks up with a smile on his face and waves his cute reverse “bye-bye” wave.

Oh, wait, we were talking about the dogs. Dog #1, a black lab, was in his fenced backyard in the next section of townhomes. Max saw him and went toddling over to take a peek. He would stare through the slats of the fence trying to get a better look. When the dog would bark, he’d jump back and giggle like he’d just made a new friend. When the owner came and took the dog inside, Max looked around the fence for the dog, kept waving his poor little bye-bye wave, and looking up at me, asking me to bring the dog back to play. When I couldn’t, he got, well, pissed.

After he calmed down and we were back to romping up and down the sidewalk came dog number 2, a pretty golden retriever that belongs to the couple one townhouse down from us. Max intercepted them on the way back from their walk and circled that poor dog mercilessly until Max got close enough for the dog to lick Max’s fingers. Max was in toddler heaven. He had way too much fun playing with, petting and just looking at that dog. It makes me feel bad that the kid probably won’t get one… so there.

Max is too funny. We went to Strathmore Hall in Rockville yesterday for this silly radio station “Christmas in July” thing. They said it was “free” and there would be lots of “snow”. There was barely enough snow for their little sledding thing (with an hour wait). So, we went wandering the grounds, chasing Max. Max decided it was fun to run in a straight line as fast as his little legs would carry him laughing the whole way.

The best part was the hill. We found this short but steep little hill covered in grass next to the path and decided that rolling down it would be a good idea. Boy, was it! Max loved it. He rolled and rolled and rolled until he finally got pooped. We got a great shot of him sitting at the bottom of the hill looking completely worn out.

The only bad part of the day was coming home to find our A/C had died. Yuck!!! Now, we have to call some repair guy to come fix it and charge us a million dollars to do it just do we can be comfortable. Home ownership is sooooooooo nice.

Max’s Page is new and improved with a super-cute pic from our trip to the beach, and pics from Christmas and early 2001. It’s amazing how much he’s grown in the past 6 months. I’ll try to get the beach pics up soon…

There’s something horrible about sinus infections. I’m well enough to go to work, but sick enough to be really annoyed that I’m here. Plus, I’m still digging out of the post-vacation emergencies, and well, I’m just not pleased. On one hand, it’s made me see how well I do my job. But, on the other, it makes me wonder why no one else can do this stuff. Tcl’s not a terribly difficult language to learn. HTML’s easy. Why is putting the two together so difficult? It beats me.

New Subject: Max has allergies, or so says the doctor. We’re supposed to go get liquid benadryl tonight and see if that stops the torrent of snot issuing from his cute little nose. It’s so ever-present that we can’t keep up with it. I came home from work yesterday, and he was covered in it. It looked like he was wearing a mask. Yep, these are the joys of parenting. On a happier note, I think Max is REALLY close to talking. He’s saying whole syllables, and they’re not the same thing over and over again. There’s real variety and inflection now, which is really cute. It reminds me of travelling overseas and sitting in airports surrounded by the cacophany of dozens of languages being spoken at once. I can’t wait for him to be able to tell us what’s going on inside that curly head of his.

I’m back, but still tired. This parenting stuff is hard. BUT, Max and I invented a new rowdy game last night. Before I tell you about it though, I need to talk about Max for a just a minute. Wow, this kid is big and strong for an 18-month old. We have this big sectional in the living room (or, as I call it, the wrestling ring) with these bulky, 15 pound cushions. Max likes to pick them up over his head and throw them over the half-wall into the entry way. And he’s only 18 months old!! What am I going to do when he’s 3 and can kick my butt?

So, the new game. It’s called “The Big Pillow Game” (can you tell I came up with the title?). Max takes a bed pillow, holds it over his head and runs around sectional until he comes to me, and then throws the pillow down on me, and falls on the pillow, making a human-pillow sandwich. This is all lots and lots of fun, because there’s nothing better than the laugh of an 18-month old boy. Nothing at all.

Hi, it’s me again. Max’s page is up and running with his very own blog. He’s very very excited about it – he drooled all over himself! His page will get a whole lot more cheerful when I have time to design it some more.